An Indian Company operating both in India, North America and other parts of the world, produces quality Insulation Tapes for various electrical applications.  The product range covers both semi-conductive and non-conductive tapes followed by applications including insulation, mounting, water blocking, bedding, binding, separation and heat resistance.

Some of the off cuts from these tapes and quality rejects need to be disposed of in such a way that there is no environmental impact at the same time preventing misuse of such rejects in the secondary market.

Haat offered a solution with its ADR model.  The volume of the system based on capacity required by the customer was doubled by Haat on its own considering the fact that the tapes which have many different coatings, including fabrics, plastic, resins, etc. produce a considerable amount of flue gas because of the nature of these tapes.  An ejector mechanism was also provided for creating negative pressure, so that no flame/smoke comes out of the loading and de-ashing locations.

A fan was provided for creating negative pressure as well as for cooling the outgoing flue gas to around 300-350°C.  As the waste was expected to burn very quickly, there was a high likelihood of dark smoke being produced in spite of the provision of the secondary chamber, ejector, etc.   Some trials were conducted, changing the quantum of waste, temperature, fan speed, etc. but the waste did burn very fast.

Based on our experience with our own Common Hazardous Waste Facility and using a bit of common sense, we used a water spray on the waste before loading and it practically eliminated the smoke, mainly because the water retarded instant ignition of the waste and thus release of smoke. This, therefore, was no longer an issue.  We also designed a special loading arrangement with a double door hopper/antechamber.  The first door of the antechamber is opened, waste  charged, water  sprinkled within the antechamber, the door closed and the second door inside is opened, leading to dropping of waste into the primary chamber.  This worked well and the customer was quite happy. All additional work to ensure safe loading, proper combustion was done by us at no extra cost to the client.  We were happy because the final objective was achieved and led to customer satisfaction.